The final date for the next election in Israel is Oct. 27, the last day allowed by law. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party are facing Israeli voters under highly problematic circumstances. In prior elections, Netanyahu tried to differentiate himself from his opponents by promoting himself as the only one who could protect Israel – a world leader with a special relationship with President Donald Trump.

Trump is back in power, but Netanyahu can no longer tout his relationship with Trump, who complements the Israeli prime minister on occasion, but has also had bitter arguments with him. Trump told the Axios website that Netanyahu “knows who the boss is.” That’s not something that plays well among Israelis amid disagreements with the Trump administration over Gaza, Lebanon and the war with Iran, which hasn’t gone as Trump or Netanyahu promised, to say the least.

Still casting its shadow over Israel is Hamas’ Oct 7, 2023 attack. Netanyahu reportedly tried to avoid having the election scheduled in October, when the anniversary of the Hamas massacre would be front and center, and also reportedly considered avoiding an election date with a seven in it.

Most of Netanyahu’s core base of voters views Israel’s security and service in the Israeli army as values of the highest order. Yet Netanyahu jumped through hoops to try to please the two ultra-Orthodox parties in his government, which demanded and received a law that impliedly equates Torah study and army service. I think it was a sorry spectacle – a last-ditch attempt to preserve an exemption from the draft for ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students when other Jewish males of their age have been fighting and dying in Gaza and Lebanon.

Some wavering supporters of Likud are now looking for another political home. I think they’re likely to gravitate in considerable numbers to one of the smaller right-wing parties that oppose Netanyahu. Or they might simply not vote, either of which would be disastrous for Likud. According to current polls, the party leader with the best chance to unseat Netanyahu is Gadi Eisenkot, a former Israel Defense Forces chief of staff whose son was killed in Gaza in December 2023. In at least one recent poll, voters found him more suitable to be prime minister than Netanyahu.

Eisenkot’s Yashar party is polling neck-and-neck or slightly ahead of Likud with a projected number of seats in the low twenties. Since no party in Israel’s proportional electoral system comes close to getting a majority, more important is which party leader can gain the support of other parties to form a majority coalition of 61 seats. The polls show the current Netanyahu coalition falling from 67 seats now in the Knesset to around 51. An Eisenkot-led coalition of Zionist parties is projected in polls at around 59 seats, very close to being able to form a majority government. That excludes consideration of roughly 10 seats going to Arab parties, which is worth a column on its own.

One great attribute of democracies is that when a government takes power, its policies are put to the test and if they fail, the voters can throw it out. It was on this far-right government’s watch that the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust occurred. The government has brought Israel’s reputation in the West to its lowest point ever and tried, and thankfully largely failed, to dismantle Israel’s democratic institutions.

If Netanyahu is ousted from power on Oct. 27, as I expect, the new government will have its work cut out for itself, but it can quickly breathe new hope into Israeli public life and restore the country’s standing in the United States and elsewhere around the world. That change can’t come soon enough.

Cliff Savren is a former Clevelander who covers the Middle East from Ra’anana, Israel. He is an editor at the English edition of Haaretz.